


What If

by ReddishRodya



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: "Everyone is okay and everything is okay" AU, But not really that AU, F/M, Fenris has issues with magic, Fenris is surprisingly not a dick, Fluff, Hawke and Fenris are happy together, Married Couple, Mentions of Slavery, Purple Hawke, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, and the world is not ending, at least not yet, but no actual slavery obvi, so mildly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 09:58:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6606553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReddishRodya/pseuds/ReddishRodya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke and Fenris have a discussion about what would happen if they had children. Also, Fenris learns how to play dictionary tag.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What If

**Author's Note:**

> [ Since I’ve been playing DA2 and been inspired, here’s a wee thing. Slightly AU, since, you know, they’re together and happy and the world’s not ending. Haha. Ouch.
> 
> This is neither long nor my best work, but I'm writing again and I felt like I should put it somewhere. Maybe. And I have this AO3 account and I've not posted anything to it yet, so. Here we go.
> 
> Warnings: Mentions of pregnancy. Language. That’s about it. ]

It came up rather innocently over breakfast one morning. Grey Hawke strolled into the kitchen at the usual time, stretched into the air like a satisfied cat, and draped herself over the shoulders of her husband, who was reading a book at the breakfast table.

“Good morning,” she trilled, pecking the elf on the cheek. His warmth had become familiar, the exact jut of his shoulders, his jaw with its barely-there scratch of stubble. Fenris had become home more than the Hawke Estate had, but having the two of them in one place wasn’t a bad deal.

Fenris sighed, a sound of amused exasperation. “It’s nearly noon.”

“It’s Saturday, who cares,” Grey replied. She dropped into the chair next to him. “What are you reading?”

“The dictionary, actually,” Fenris answered dryly, holding it up for her to see. Grey snorted.

“You’re _reading_ the _dictionary?_ ”

“How am I going to improve my reading abilities if I don’t invest time in learning new words? It’s practical. I skip the ones I know, anyway,” he shot back, tone defensive.

His wife chuckled, holding up her hands. “I won’t argue with that,” she replied, scooting her chair a bit closer, “but I can show you a way to make your dictionary devouring a little less tedious.”

Fenris looked up, lips pulling into a half-smirk. Grey’s ideas were usually ridiculous, even in serious situations. He figured this would be no exception. “Oh?”

“It’s called dictionary tag,” Grey said. “Let me see that.” She plucked the dictionary from his hands with one smooth movement.

“Hey–” Fenris protested.

“Just a second. Alright, let’s see… Maker, you’re already into the D’s, how long have you been reading this? Right, to start dictionary tag, you open the dictionary to any page.” She shut the book and reopened it, earning a halfhearted grumble from Fenris about losing his place. “The first word you see, you read the definition.” Her dark eyes scanned the page. She was in the M section. “Ah, here we are. Misdirection, noun. A wrong or incorrect direction, guidance, or instruction. In law, an erroneous charge to the jury by the judge.”

“What does erroneous mean?” Fenris asked, a bit gingerly. It had taken time for him to adjust to asking questions without damaging his pride. That Grey always took him seriously when he needed her to was an enormous help.

“That’s the point of the game!” Grey grinned at him. “You find a word in the definition that you don’t know, or else the most interesting one. And then you look up that word and do the same.” She flipped back to the E section, searched for a second, and then announced, “Erroneous, adjective. Containing error, mistaken, incorrect, or wrong. Straying from what is moral, decent, or proper. Say you pick proper–”

“I know what proper means.”

“I know you do. But there might be a word in the definition of ‘proper’ that you don’t know. It’s a game my father taught me when I was learning to read.” A thoughtful smile crossed her face. “It’s a good method.” She paused, then said - with a degree of caution - “Maybe one day you can teach a child of your own to play.”

Fenris froze for a moment, looking over at her slowly. She bit her lip, raising her eyes to his.

“You know.” Her voice was quiet now. “If we… have a child.”

The elf was speechless for a moment, studying her face as she studied his. He read the tentative hope and the fear in the widening of her eyes. She read his apprehension in the set of his jaw.

“You have… been considering this?” Fenris asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

Grey swallowed, pulled one of her awkward half-smiles. It was telling that she wasn’t cracking a joke to alleviate the tension. It meant she was serious, and Fenris wasn’t sure if he found that worrying or not. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the subject at all.

“Only a little.”

“A little?”

“I…”

“Mister Fenris, I’ve finished making the tea– oh, Mistress, you’re awake.” Orana had entered the room from the kitchen holding a tea tray, her tone about as cheerful as she managed to get. She stopped when the two seemed to startle and looked up at her at the same time, her cheeks going pink.

“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered, “I didn’t mean to intrude…”

“No, no.” Grey was quick to reassure her, offering a pleasant smile. “No, Orana, it’s no trouble. Thank you for the tea.”

“Should I wait to make breakfast…?” asked the servant, looking between the two of them, seeming distinctly out of her element.

“I’ll take care of it,” Fenris cut in.

“Mister Fenris…?” Orana responded tentatively. ‘Mister Fenris’ had been the best the two had managed to settle on. Fenris had felt uncomfortable being called ‘sir,’ and the first time she slipped up and called him ‘Master’ out of habit, it did not go over well. Orana was well-paid, well-fed, and well-housed, but never for a moment did he forget that she was once a slave, as he had been, and now she was serving him. It was six degrees of separation from having a slave of his own, at least in his mind, and it made him uncomfortable to begin with.

“Rest,” he told her. “I will make the meal. Within the hour.”

Orana blinked a few times, confused. Grey was an absolute disaster in the kitchen, but she rarely saw Fenris venture there for any reason. After a moment, she decided just to nod, set the tray down, bow, and leave the room, feeling very awkward and shaken up and deciding maybe she would take a nap.

Grey waited until Orana was out of earshot, and then some, before she spoke again. “You’re going to make breakfast?”

“Don’t change the subject,” he said softly, not looking at her. Grey stopped, feeling her heart jump in her chest.

“I- Okay… I won’t.”

“You wanted to know my opinion, then? On… us, having a family?”

“I… suppose so, yes. I was curious, but I thought…”

He raised his eyes to meet hers. “What?”

Grey swallowed, twisting her hands under the table. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to.”

“I’ve never expressed an opinion either way."

“No, you haven’t, but…”

“But…?” he prompted.

She looked up at him seriously now, her dark eyes worried and a bit sad. “You know… that magic runs strongly in my family, Fenris.”

 _Oh._ The pieces clicked together in his mind, and his expression shifted from confused to thoughtful, or maybe concerned, or both. Grey felt her stomach pit. It had taken Fenris long enough to accept her magic, to look past her abilities and see her as a person, not just another mage. Even around her mage friends, he remained distrustful and prickly, and she had only just begun to work on opening his mind, to make him see the world in something other than black and white. Perhaps this was too much.

“What are you saying?” he asked flatly, in a tone that indicated he already knew. He wanted to hear it out loud.

“I’m saying,” Grey continued, fighting to keep her voice and face steady, “that if we were to have children… or a child, they would probably… have magic. Like me. Like my father, and my sister.”

“Your brother is no mage.”

The statement, and his unreadable tone, was almost enough to make her cry. But she was stronger than that. Probably. She hoped.

“No, he wasn’t,” she agreed. “Neither was my mother, nor were her parents… as far as I know. But the Amell line… there has always been magic in it, and from the little I know about my father’s family, the same was true of his.” In her head, she was doing her best just to keep speaking. _Breathe. Breathe. Fenris loves you. You know Fenris loves you. He won’t leave you over this. Probably._

“And…" she began again, almost timidly, "your sister had magic.”

Fenris went quiet. “You mean Varania?” He had never managed to find a way to say that name without a note of bitterness. Varania hadn't been a topic of discussion in years, and they had received no word of her since that evening in the Hanged Man. Several times, Grey had offered to track her whereabouts, and each time, Fenris had told her decisively that he didn't want to know. His feelings toward her were a mixture of guilt and grudge. He didn't think he could ever forgive her for selling him out to Danarius, even if her doing so did give him the opportunity to kill the bastard once and for all.

“Yes," Grey said, jarring Fenris from his meditation on his sister and back into the conversation at hand. "I know you don’t know much about your own family, but…” She trailed off, shook her head. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t like to talk about it, but if your sister was a mage, then you carry that potential as well. In your bloodline. Many elves do.” Hawke squeezed her eyes shut. She could envision the look on his face as she said that, as he realized that his own genetics were tainted irreparably with magic as the rest of his life had been. The disgust. The fear. The resentment, though, would be the worst. And she wasn’t sure she could handle it.

There was a long and poignant silence before she heard her husband speak. “Grey. Look at me.”

She opened her eyes slowly, her short black hair falling into her line of vision, brushing her coppery cheeks. The man next to her reached out, pushing a dark lock behind her ear with a gentleness he reserved only for her, as if he were touching something priceless and fragile.

“Look at me,” he said again. His hand was on her cheek, rough and warm and familiar. She leaned into it and did as he asked, meeting his gaze.

There was no disgust there. There was no resentment. Perhaps a slight apprehension, but not the bitterness or the hatred she had been so afraid to see.

“Family is a... precious thing,” he said, his tone cautious, like he was picking his way down a trapped corridor. “Something I’ve yet to truly experience. But its value does not escape me. If you’re asking me whether or not I would hate my own offspring for having magic, I can tell you. I wouldn’t. I could never hate you. And I could never hate any child of ours. Of mine. Mage or not.”

For a second time, Grey thought that she could cry, right now. All over him. All over everything, for sheer fucking joy that those words had just come out of her husband’s mouth. Without another word, she flung her arms around his neck, practically clambering into his lap in her elation. Fenris choked a bit at the sudden pressure of her arms, shifted in his chair, and embraced her in turn, tilting his face into her hair.

Grey pulled back after a moment, pressing a kiss to his lips before settling back into her seat, sniffling a bit but smiling.

“Well, ah,” she mumbled. “If that’s really how you feel…”

“It is,” Fenris responded, voice as firm as he could make it.

“Then you should know,” Grey said.

“Know what?”

She took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye.

“Fenris. I’m pregnant.”


End file.
